Press Releases

Mark Simpson clarinettist/composer

Mark Simpson’s Debut disc for NMC
A film by Graham Johnston

Sitting behind the desk at a recording session is a new role for composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson and one that he relished for the opportunity it gave him to lay bare and fine-tune his chamber works composed between 2006 and 2014. Night Music, his Debut Disc for NMC as a composer, features works previously unrecorded and performed by the musicians and ensembles for whom they were originally written, including oboist Nicholas Daniel, pianist Richard Uttley and the Mercury Quartet. As a composer, Mark’s works are most often enveloped in dark tones and atmospheres of loss, dreams, hauntings, intimacy and passion inspired by poetry and place, while his performing allows him to also communicate on another level.

Night Music | NMC D225 | released May 2016

View film here >>

Hear CD extracts here >>

A ROSTER OF NEW BBT AWARD WINNERS FOR 2016

The Trust proudly announced its latest award winners in February. Awards went to the Danish String Quartet and German soprano Anna Lucia Richter, while Fellowships were given to the Calidore String Quartet (US), violinists Alexandra Conunova (Moldova) and Maria Milstein (Russia) and violist Eivind Holtsmark Ringstad (Norway), as well as pianists Zoltán Fejérvári (Hungary) and Beatrice Rana (Italy).

A Special Chamber Music Award in Honour of Claudio Abbado for Italian musicians was also given to the Quartetto Lyskamm.

View all 2016 winners here >>

Apollon Musagète Quartet plays John Adams

A Unison Shot Film

“A string quartet only takes shape when we perform for someone and tell a story.”
The Apollon Musagète Quartet enthuses about the energising and magical qualities of connecting with audiences. During a visit to Feldkirch in Austria they perform John Adams’ recent Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra with the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg conducted by Gérard Korsten and the Apollon Musagète’s own A Multitude of Shades.

View film here >>

Benjamin Beilman violin

For his Warner Classics debut CD, Spectrum, Benjamin Beilman, with pianist Yekwon Sunwoo, put together a wide-ranging programme of apparently disparate works which do nevertheless have common bonds, as he explains: “The natural lyricism and tenderness of the Schubert highlights the moments of intimacy in the Janáček which so often expresses pure violence and terror. Stravinsky’s dance rhythms and insistent pulse are echoed in the waltz section of Kreisler’s Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta.”

SPECTRUM | Warner Classics 0825646008971 | released March 2016

Hear an extract from the CD here >>

James Baillieu piano

“Song is the main thrust of my career”
James Baillieu reflects on his 15/16 Season Wigmore Hall Series

Films by TallWall Media

These two films complement James Baillieu’s own concert series at Wigmore Hall in which he reflects on his passion for working and performing with singers, as well as the challenges and rewards of collaborating with fellow instrumentalists. In the first film he talks about programming and how he devised a concert of American and English song around a new work he commissioned from Nico Muhly (with the support of his BBT Fellowship) sung by Iestyn Davies and Allan Clayton (BBT Fellowship 2008). In the second film he is in conversation with the Heath Quartet (BBT Special Ensemble Scholarship 2011), reflecting on their long friendship and how they approached their Wigmore programme of Mozart and Elgar.

View films here >>

Read press reaction to Muhly premiere here >>

Anna Lucia Richter soprano

2016 Award winner Anna Lucia Richter is fast establishing a reputation as a Lieder singer of dramatic sensitivity with recently acclaimed recitals in New York and Amsterdam as well as her German homeland. She will give a recital of Schubert Songs accompanied by pianist Michael Gees at 22 Mansfield Street, London W1 on 5 July at 7.30pm. Their recent recording together of songs by Schumann, Brahms and Britten on Challenge Records highlights their mutual rapport in performance and their shared love of the Romantic Lieder repertoire.

Apply for recital tickets: boas22m@btinternet.com

Read more about BBT’s London Showcase Concerts >>